Trump’s war against the press enabled Jamal Khashoggi’s murder

Trump’s war against the press enabled Jamal Khashoggi’s murder

Comments 0 Comment

Douglas Bloomfield writes: Donald Trump has Jamal Khashoggi’s blood on his hands. It’s not just his initial indifference to the US-based Saudi journalist’s disappearance in Istanbul, nor the president’s indifference toward human rights abuses, not his obsequiousness toward the Saudis, nor a transactional approach to foreign policy that puts the “deal” ahead of any principle. And it’s not just because the Saudi king “vehemently” denied any role in the reporter’s disappearance or because the president offered him a possible “excuse,”…

Read More Read More

In Riyadh, Pompeo’s grin contrasts with image as tough-talking diplomat

In Riyadh, Pompeo’s grin contrasts with image as tough-talking diplomat

Comments 0 Comment

Still can’t believe this picture is *after* he ordered a journalist be chopped up. pic.twitter.com/wmaJvUudmT — Arash Karami (@thekarami) October 16, 2018 The New York Times reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has cast himself as a tough, straight-talking former Army tank commander with the moral clarity necessary to confront the world’s bad guys. But on his quick trip to Saudi Arabia, where he sat smiling with royal leaders suspected of involvement in the disappearance of a dissident Saudi journalist,…

Read More Read More

Pat Robertson cares more about money than murder

Pat Robertson cares more about money than murder

Comments 0 Comment

Vox reports: A major evangelical leader has spoken in defense of US-Saudi relations after the apparent killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate, saying that America has more important things — like arms deals — to focus on. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, appeared on its flagship television show The 700 Club on Monday to caution Americans against allowing the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia to deteriorate over Khashoggi’s death. “For those who are…

Read More Read More

Big Fail: The internet hasn’t helped democracy

Big Fail: The internet hasn’t helped democracy

Comments 0 Comment

New research shows that more and more of our public conversation is unfolding within a dwindling coterie of sites that are controlled by a small few, largely unregulated and geared primarily to profit rather than public interest. Unsplash By Robert Diab, Thompson Rivers University Hardly a week goes by without news of another data breach at a large corporation affecting millions, most recently Facebook. In 2016, the issue became political with evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. election and…

Read More Read More

Humanity is ‘cutting down the tree of life’, warn scientists

Humanity is ‘cutting down the tree of life’, warn scientists

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: Humanity’s ongoing annihilation of wildlife is cutting down the tree of life, including the branch we are sitting on, according to a stark new analysis. More than 300 different mammal species have been eradicated by human activities. The new research calculates the total unique evolutionary history that has been lost as a result at a startling 2.5bn years. Furthermore, even if the destruction of wild areas, poaching and pollution were ended within 50 years and extinction rates…

Read More Read More

Mounting evidence implicates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Mounting evidence implicates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — seen disembarking from airplanes with him in Paris and Madrid and photographed standing guard during his visits this year to Houston, Boston and the United Nations. Three others are linked by witnesses and other records to the Saudi crown prince’s security detail. A fifth is a forensic doctor…

Read More Read More

Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance has accomplished what 50,000 Yemeni deaths could not

Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance has accomplished what 50,000 Yemeni deaths could not

Comments 0 Comment

Shireen Al-Adeimi writes: Saudi Arabia has been a close U.S. ally for decades, but during that it has engaged in numerous violations of human rights including creating what is currently the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. For over three-and-a-half years, Saudi Arabia has been waging a brutal attack on its poorest neighbor, Yemen, causing the killings of as many as 50,000 people and the silent deaths of an estimated 113,000 children who have perished from malnutrition and preventable diseases like cholera….

Read More Read More

Saudia Arabia’s crown prince went a ghastly step too far

Saudia Arabia’s crown prince went a ghastly step too far

Comments 0 Comment

David B. Ottaway writes: According to news reports, Saudi Arabia’s leaders might be preparing to announce that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was indeed killed inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Apparently they plan to explain away his death as a botched abduction attempt carried out by “rogue” killers – an extremely unlikely scenario, given the ruthlessly centralized structure of the Saudi regime. Whatever happens next, it is already clear that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler,…

Read More Read More

Trump’s attacks on the press are illegal. We’re suing

Trump’s attacks on the press are illegal. We’re suing

Comments 0 Comment

Suzanne Nossel writes: President Donald J. Trump’s frequent threats and hostile acts directed toward journalists and the media are not only offensive and unbecoming of a democratic leader; they are also illegal. In the Trump era, nasty rhetoric, insults and even threats of violence have become an occupational hazard for political reporters and commentators. To be sure, a good portion of President Trump’s verbal attacks on journalists and news organizations might be considered fair game in this bare-knuckled political moment….

Read More Read More

Former U.S. special operations fighters hired to assassinate politicians in the Middle East

Former U.S. special operations fighters hired to assassinate politicians in the Middle East

Comments 0 Comment

BuzzFeed reports: Cradling an AK-47 and sucking a lollipop, the former American Green Beret bumped along in the back of an armored SUV as it wound through the darkened streets of Aden. Two other commandos on the mission were former Navy SEALs. As elite US special operations fighters, they had years of specialized training by the US military to protect America. But now they were working for a different master: a private US company that had been hired by the…

Read More Read More

Woodward missed everything that matters about the Trump presidency

Woodward missed everything that matters about the Trump presidency

Comments 0 Comment

David Frum writes: The alleged killing of a Washington Post columnist on the orders of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has triggered many rethinks—and not least a rethinking of the lavishly flattering journalism that hailed the crown prince’s rise to supreme power. Among the biggest media boosters of the Saudi crown prince was Bob Woodward in his new book, Fear. Woodward observed that a National Security Council staffer, Derek Harvey, believed that “MBS was the future. MBS saw…

Read More Read More

‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss

‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: Insects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico, the study found, and the forest’s insect-eating animals have gone missing, too. In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past…

Read More Read More

Polluting giant turns to green energy to escape EU carbon risk

Polluting giant turns to green energy to escape EU carbon risk

Comments 0 Comment

Blooomberg reports: Central Europe’s third-largest polluter plans to almost triple its clean-energy capacity as emission costs surge. Tauron Polska Energia SA is preparing to add at least 700 megawatts of clean, regulated power to “improve” its portfolio after carbon permits almost tripled over the past year, Chief Financial Officer Marek Wadowski said. That’s the equivalent of half a modern nuclear reactor and echoes moves by European utilities from Enel SpA to Vattenfall AB to boost their clean power generation. “We’re…

Read More Read More

Minority rule does not have to be here forever

Minority rule does not have to be here forever

Comments 0 Comment

Jamelle Bouie writes: A central architect of the Constitution, James Madison was deeply sensitive to the threat majorities posed to minorities. On important social questions, “[N]o other rule exists … but the will of the majority,” he wrote in 1785 while a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, “but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.” Our governing document shows this sensitivity in its structure, which diffuses powers across multiple institutions,…

Read More Read More

As America’s elite abandons a reckless Saudi prince, will Trump join them?

As America’s elite abandons a reckless Saudi prince, will Trump join them?

Comments 0 Comment

Robin Wright writes: Last spring, Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and the richest man in modern history, hosted the young Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Seattle. The Saudi press posted photos of Bezos in an open-necked shirt and the prince, having shed his Saudi robes, in a Western suit and dark-red tie. Both men beamed as they talked business and investment opportunities. Bezos was among the prosperous and powerful Americans who met the crown prince during a three-week…

Read More Read More

Trump parrots absurd ‘rogue killers’ story promoted by Saudis

Trump parrots absurd ‘rogue killers’ story promoted by Saudis

Comments 0 Comment

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that “rogue killers” may be responsible for the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, while also dispatching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. “We are going to leave nothing uncovered,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “With that being said, the king firmly denied any knowledge of it. … I don’t want to get into his mind, but it sounded…

Read More Read More